


i kneel into a dream where i am good and i am loved

by river_of_words



Series: a problem shared (a problem doubled) [2]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: 13 tries to give her younger self some comfort and hope, Comfort/Angst, Gen, Sad, just... Sad, the doctor is sad and throws themself a pity party and invites themself!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:21:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26970556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/river_of_words/pseuds/river_of_words
Summary: After meeting Nikola Tesla and roasting some alien scorpions, the Doctor realises she has some things she wants to say to her younger self.Set just after Journey's End for Ten.
Relationships: Tenth Doctor & Thirteenth Doctor
Series: a problem shared (a problem doubled) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1925188
Comments: 8
Kudos: 34





	i kneel into a dream where i am good and i am loved

The Doctor turns the wheel of the directional unit a fraction more to the right, keeping a very careful eye on the telector screen. The Tardis vibrates, nudging ever so slightly closer to a big emergency and the universe going bang. They are really walking a tightrope here.

“I’ve got good balance,” the Doctor mutters absently as she matches the frequency of the dimensional adjudicators to the Tardis’s rotation.

She steps back, looking over their work. “Is that it? I think we’ve got it.”

If she got her calculations right. Which she might not have. The Tardis whines; a turtle without its shell.

“It’s only for a moment. Okay, on three. I turn off the safety interlocks, you accelerate.”

The Tardis sighs.

“This is a bad idea, I know, I know, just do it.” The Doctor puts her hand on the switch for the safety interlocks. “One, two, _three._ ”

Like a wave ebbing back into the sea, her Tardis merges with, well, also her Tardis, from about a thousand years ago. Her safe and protective orange pillars slimming and bending outward like trees to open up an enormous space. She’d forgotten how big it had been. The walls and time rotor swap colours, but the hectagonal round things on the walls stay, leaving her standing cold and small in a console room that is the exact inverse of her current one.

The Doctor stumbles as memories of Rose, Martha, Donna, and all of the things she had done while she was the person who knew them hit her like a flood, breaking down centuries of mental barriers. This might not have been the best idea. Her hands close around something sturdy and soft. Oh! The railing with the bouncy cushions tied around them. She should bring those back, they come in handy.

Someone groans exasperatedly and she looks up into her own brown eyes staring back at her. Coatless, jacketless, hair soaked, shirt soaked, too drained to even be startled, the young Doctor just blinks at her.

“If you could just sort it out without me, that would be marvelous. I’ve had a very long day.”

“I know you have,” the Doctor says, turning away from her own confrontational face to look up at the high ceiling. “That’s what I was aiming for.”

The dilapidated old worn-out seats squeak as the young Doctor drops down on them. “You did this on purpose.” He doesn’t have the energy to sound surprised. “Why.”

The old Doctor wanders around the console, stalling for time as the answer to that question gets stuck in her chest. She puts her hands on buttons and switches, remembering what it was like to be the person whose hands fit here. The person staring at her tiredly from the other side of the console.

“I, uh–” She drags her fingers over wires and bolts. “I needed–” The resistance of the bulky buttons, the organically mechanical beauty of this patchwork console, echoes in her own ghost monument like the person on the other side of it echoes in her. “I wanted to talk to you.”

“Feeling nostalgic?” When he doesn’t get an answer, he says, “You’re going to blow a hole in the universe.”

“Nah–” She pulls the screen toward her and checks some things, struggling through layers of outdated interface settings and some truly embarrassing post-its stuck to the monitor. “Look, see?” She shows him the screen. “Gave us a couple of hours.”

He sits up at this, peering at the screen. “Wha– How– You can’t fly the Tardis _that_ precisely!”

“ _You_ can’t.” Despite herself, she grins. “Yet.”

He drags his eyes from the screen over to her, looking vaguely impressed. Proud, maybe, in advance. Well, he should be. If she may say so herself.

“Must be important then,” he says, leaning back and watching her expectantly. “Risking creating a black hole and coming back here to relive today, of all days.”

The Doctor avoids his eyes and gently pushes a wobbly thermocoupling back into alignment.

“Well?”

She points at the thermocoupling. “This is loose.”

“Noted.” When she doesn’t offer anything more, he groans impatiently. “Spit it out. Get this over with. Already had plans for tonight.” He vaguely waves a hand around, demonstrating the cozy-night-in ambiance the Tardis clearly has going for it with its cavernous console room, lack of friends, cold blue light, and sporadic dripping of the metal grating from the rain he has dragged in. “You’re not in them,” he adds pointedly.

Wasn’t she though? The Doctor grimaces. She has chosen to look in this mirror, she has no right to complain about her reflection now.

“You’re angry,” she says slowly, weighing the words on her tongue. They’re surprisingly squirmy. Not the answer that got stuck in her chest earlier, but maybe friends of it.

“No...!” The seats squeak as he uses the fuel irritation provides to lift himself out of his pit of misery and sit up. “A bit– A bit peeved, sure. I was looking forward to a nice night in. Some me-time, you know, and now here you are–”

The Doctor spreads her arms demonstratively. “Here I am.”

“And it’s–” He drops his head in his hand, incredulous at the universe. “The more, the merrier, I suppose!”

She shifts her weight from foot to foot. “Just me, myself, and I.”

He looks up in alarm. “There’s not another one coming, is there?”

“Wasn’t planning on it.”

“Well, I wasn’t planning on this either, but here you are.”

“Good point. Can I sit?” She might be able to stop this conversation from floating aimlessly if she could stop feeling like she’s floating aimlessly around this console room. Like a ghost. An upside down memory.

The young Doctor gestures around console room, which is completely devoid of chairs except for the one he occupies. “Make yourself at home. Shall I put the kettle on, too?” So sardonic. “What?” he snaps. “What are you smiling at?”

She shakes her head and wiggles another loose switch. This Tardis is holding itself together almost as badly as he is.

“I’m not smiling.”

She really isn’t. She didn’t mean to, anyway. They might never have been the best at being aware of their feelings but this pressure in her chest isn’t joy. Maybe her face is confused.

“What are you _not_ smiling at, then?”

She swallows. Tastes the grief and the loss and the remorse and the compassion. Compassion for her younger self that she can’t extend to herself. That he can’t give himself either. “You remind me of me.”

He snorts. “I should hope so!”

“Yeah?” she snaps, looking into his young, tired, bitter eyes. Eyes that already believe themself to be too old to keep going. “You want me to be like you? Still? You know how old I am?”

His bluster and bravado drain away as he looks at her, actually properly looks at her, into her eyes for the first time, and considers. He’s a lot quieter when he asks, “How old are you?”

“Three regenerations,” she says, and watches his face pale. “Five loved ones.”

“That’s not too bad,” he says, a sharp edge to the cavalier way he puts his feet up on the console.

She opens her mouth to say _how dare you_ , spoiled brat. _How dare you presume what their lives were worth._ But then she sees his face. And bites her tongue. Bites her tongue really hard, hoping he feels it. She gets it, he’s lost more friends _today_. _She_ lost more friends that day. But it isn’t about quantity and fewer friends don’t make the pain any lesser. She walks over and bumps his legs off the console. Pushes him back in the chair and looks him in the eyes.

“It _will_ hurt,” she promises. Like holding her hand in a flame, like punching a wall of azbantium. Over, and over, and over, and over, and– “It _will_ hurt.” She turns around abruptly. “Go put the kettle on.”

* * *

By the time he comes back with two cups of tea, she’s laid out her coat on the metal grating and is sitting with her back against the console.

“Took a while.” She takes one of the cups from him. “Couldn’t find the kitchen?”

“Could’ve sworn it was that way!” he says, looking back at the corridor he'd walked out of.

“Where’d you find the kettle then?”

“Tripped over it in the hallway,” he grumbles.

The old Doctor grins and pats the console affectionately. “Thanks, old girl.”

The young Doctor rolls his eyes, carefully setting his cup down on the floor and dropping back on the squeaky seats. “Oh, like you know where the kitchen is!”

“I do actually.”

“How? No wait, better question, _why_.”

She shrugs. “It’s in use.”

“By _who_?!”

“Friends, family, you know.” She takes a sip of tea to avoid his gaze and promptly burns her tongue.

“ _Family?_ Don’t tell me I become _domestic_.” The careless disdain in his voice cloaks panic.

She glances at him fidgeting, ostensibly finding a more comfortable position to sit on the rickety chair, and breathes a soft laugh. It’s not funny. But isn’t everything a little funny? Seen through the looking glass of time? Time mends. Time mends us.

“Ehh,” she hedges, “you get older, you want different things.” And still exactly the same things.

“Don’t tell me you’ve got a house!”

“I was thinking about buying a flat, actually,” she says casually, stretching her legs out in front of her and watching him squirm from the corner of her eye.

“Oh, it’s over!” he laments at the ceiling. “It’s all over! Kill me now before I become old and BORING!”

“Oi!” She halfheartedly kicks in his direction. “Respect your elders!”

He snorts. “So what did you come here for except to play Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come and show me bleak visions of my future?”

“It’s not that bad,” she mutters.

“Seriously, am _I_ this bad, because you’re–”

“Talking all the time and not saying anything?” she says quietly, before realising what she’s saying and looking up at him. He looks struck.

“Okay.” He stands up. “I think when we’re making self-loathing into a dialogue, maybe it’s time to leave the tea be and get out the ginger beer, what do you think?”

The Doctor doesn’t chastise him; it’s futile, knowing how he’s going to spend the next couple of months (and it’s hypocritical, knowing what she has in her pocket), but she does stop him.

“Okay, okay, no, stop.” She grabs his trouser leg.

“What,” he snaps, trying not to lose his balance and pulling himself free.

She snaps her fingers. “Sit.”

He moves toward the chair.

“On the _floor_. I’m not looking up at you for the rest of this conversation.”

“Bossy,” he mutters, sitting down next to her against the console.

“Brat,” she snaps back before rolling her eyes. “Insults don’t really work in this situation.”

“I repeat my last about the ginger beer.”

“No, no, I– _you_ need to be sober for this.”

He shoots her the shortest of glances and she knows he’s picked up on the implication she hadn’t meant to make. His eyes are dreadful and his tone is sharper when he says, “Hurry up then.”

She takes a deep breath, more sure about these words now. “You’re angry.” She furtively watches his reaction. He shakes his head, more to himself than her, which, same difference, and smiles very cynically when he looks up to meet her eyes. “I told you–”

“ _You’re_ _angry_ ,” she interrupts, “and you’re hurt–”

“Is this _going_ anywhere?” He makes a move to stand up.

“But!” She pulls him back down by his arm and raises her voice. “But you’re going to be okay.”

His anger and chagrin drop away so instantly and so completely – like she knew they would, because she knows him, with the perspective of hindsight can see him clearer than he can see himself – she almost winces in the face of his pain. His emotions are so close to the surface, so hot and liquid. One cut and he bleeds. Hers have been buried. Weighed down under losses like rocks. Hers make their way silently underground like rivers of magma.

He freezes, caught between fear and relief. He’s so afraid of her pain, so resentful when she shows it. She in turn can barely stand to see his. So stark and alive, not yet eroded by time and the anaesthetising imperfection of memory, it looks a lot like hers.

“You are going to be okay,” she says, slowly so her voice stays intact. She takes a breath, makes sure it doesn’t tremble. Lets it steady her. She looks him in the eye. “You are going to be okay.”

He crumbles, leans into her side, drops his head on her shoulder. This is what he needs. For someone to hold him up for a while, to show him a glimmer of hope, a bit of gentleness. If the ending is not in the cards, then the promise of a happy continuation, by someone he can trust the perspective of. Because humans, though wonderful, don’t know _this._ Humans don’t know watching the battlefield empty around you, again and again and again in every new life. Humans don’t know spending years, decennia, centuries, millennia, in self-elected prisons for the ones you love. Humans don’t know what _time_ means.

She does. She knows what time means even more than he does. She feels him shaking his head against her. Fervently, almost subconsciously it seems.

 _Yes,_ she nods, even though he probably can't see it, _you will be._

“You are going to be okay,” she promises. “You will be alright.”

“I’m always alright,” he counters like an automatism.

“I know, and it’s–”

“–not fair.”

“–not fair, I know, it isn’t.”

He moves away from her and she sees the question in his eyes: What do I get? Why do I get _this_? Why is this what I get?

“It’s not about that,” she says. It isn’t about what she gets, what she deserves. It’s not about reward. She shakes her head. “It’s not about that.” He’s young and he will learn. Will learn from what he did to Donna, will learn from Clara and Bill. But she can give him a sneak peek.

“It’s not about what we get. That’s not why we do what we do. We do what we do because–” her voice betrays her and she squeezes her hands into fists, “because it’s _right._ Because it’s decent. And kind. That’s who you are. That’s who you will be. But fine, I’ll tell you what you get.” She sits up a little straighter.

“You _are_ going to die–”

He makes a little noise of discontent, or protest maybe.

“–but only once!” she continues quickly. “One time, you will die. One time, you will change. And one time, you will _live._ ”

Her voice becomes more sure now that she’s finding the story that is unrolling itself for her as she sorts through memories, but her hands are restless and want to run so she takes one of his, lying dead in his lap, and squeezes it. Something solid to keep her from floating away and him from sinking down.

“When you die – and the day is coming, and I know you’re scared – you will find what you are looking for.” She takes a quick sharp breath to hold some of the loss, some of the longing. “You will find what you lost. You will find a little Scottish girl in an English garden.”

She smiles at the memory.

“Her name is Amelia and she has red hair and she will be your best friend. She won’t be with you forever but she will be with you for a long time.”

She ignores the old wounds that start trickling blood again.

“You will tell her stories. Stories about time and space and all of the stars and a madman in a box.” She breathes a laugh and then adds. “Don’t worry, you grow out of that.

“In return she will tell you about belonging, and not belonging. About family. She waits for you. She waits all night, years and years, for you to be ready. And when you are, she accepts you as you are. Completely. As you are. She will give you a family because she does not come alone.

“The last centurion is with her. He defends her while she waits. He will not leave her and she will not leave you. They have a baby. Her name is Melody Pond, but she grows up to become professor River Song and–” He finds her eyes, mouth open in question. She just grins and nods. “–and you will love each other very much for a very long time.

“When you change, you will see it coming too, and you won’t have to do it alone. Clara Oswald will be there. Clara Oswald is always there, somewhere. You don’t remember yet, but you’ve already met her.

“You will live together, and you will grow together, and you will change together. You will go to the end of the universe for her. You become a teacher because of her.

“And when you become a teacher – a proper one, at a university – your oldest friend will be there.”

She glances at him, gauging his reaction. It's blank, confused, he can't imagine it.

“You will heal together,” she continues, “on the same hopes and dreams and stars, you will heal. You will be content there. You will be content there for a long time.

“And then you meet a student. You’ve met loads of students at that point, but this one is different, this one is special. She’s not yet a student in technicality when you meet her, but she is one in spirit. Just like you were a teacher in spirit before you were one in technicality. You’ll teach her and she’ll teach you. Bill Potts will remind you of family...”

She trails off. She trails off as the words evaporate, as her story meets her present and stops being a story and starts being twisty-turny chaos again. Chaos that hurts. She blinks and meets his eyes. Instead of more words, she finds a bit of truth to twist.

“...and then you live. That is what you get. You get to live. You get to move on.”

He exhales a shaky breath. Before he says anything, they sit side by side, shoulder to shoulder, for a long time. He lays his head on her shoulder again.

“That’s what we get,” he says quietly. She doesn’t respond, waits for the rest of his thoughts to materialise. “Is it what we deserve?”

She shrugs, bouncing his head. “Probably.”

“Is it what we want?”

“ _Yes._ ” She turns to him, makes him lift his head and look at her. “You haven’t lived too long yet. You’ve only just started. You have a lot more to learn.”

His eyes drift over her like he’s only just now seeing her.

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“What do you have?”

“I have friends, I have family, I have a home.”

He searches her face for a long moment, eyes narrowed, unsure how to interpret this untruth that isn’t a lie. She thinks about how in a year time he will start warning all his friends that _the Doctor lies_. Oh well.

“Is it what you deserve?”

She turns away, drags a hand through her hair and shields her face from his view. She blinks hard a couple of times and when she turns back he’s watching her with piercing eyes. She’s about to pull a smile and a lie from somewhere but before she can, he leans his head back against her shoulder and whispers, “You must be so tired.”

She sags a little, sighs, drops the smile and the lie. “But I’m still here.”

“Clearly,” he says, a little bitterly. And then, turning, suddenly curious, “Why?”

“Oh,” she says, simple and self-evident, “because there are still people who need help.” And then, not because this can still entice her, but because she knows it does him, she adds, “And I haven’t seen everything yet. I still get proved wrong. All the time.”

He nods slowly.

* * *

When they’ve drunk – thrown out – their cold tea and she has put her coat back on, cold and clammy from the damp metal floor, he asks, “Why tell me this? I won’t be able to to remember.”

She suppresses a tiny grin. “You should have recorded it or something.”

His mouth falls open. “You’re saying this _now_!”

She smiles innocently. “Better luck next time.”

“Oh you’re sneaky! You– I’ll remember– I _will_ remember that!”

“You do that,” she says and starts pushing buttons to get the merged Tardises ready to separate.

“Seriously, why did you tell me all this?”

She becomes so heavy, limbs like lead, stomach like the sea, her hands go still on the console, she doesn’t look up. After a long pause in which her breaths become ice, she says, “It wasn’t for your sake.”

She flips a switch and their Tardises separate.

**Author's Note:**

> sometimes you write 8.5 thousand words bursting with emotion and character insights all wrapped up in about 3 layers of metaphor and symbolism and sometimes you... dont do that. and you have to grapple with the idea that just because "progress" (whatever that may mean) in your skills is more important than perfection, that doesnt mean that every work HAS to be better than the last. 
> 
> anyway, you can see my thoughts on the master are a lot more developed than my thoughts on 10 and 13! i think i just wanted to tell the doctor they were gonna be okay tbh and thats why i wrote this
> 
> i feel like there are similarities between 13 and 10 in their trauma and anger. 13 is a lot more mature but there are similarities. doesnt that scene in 12x4 super echo the runaway bride? arachnid-like aliens that the doctor basically all murders. the fact that the doctor murders all the arachnids BECAUSE they were taunted about gallifrey? like:
> 
> EMPRESS: Who is this little physician?  
> LANCE: She said Martian.  
> DOCTOR: Oh, I'm sort of homeless.  
> ***  
> DOCTOR: Oh, but I'm not from Mars.  
> EMPRESS: Then where?  
> DOCTOR: My home planet is far away and long since gone. But its name lives on. Gallifrey.  
> EMPRESS: They murdered the Racnoss!  
> DOCTOR: I warned you. You did this. 
> 
> and:
> 
> DOCTOR: No, we're way past that. I gave you your chance.  
> QUEEN: A chance to be like you?  
> DOCTOR: A chance to evolve, but you were too stupid to take it. When you die, there'll be nothing left behind. Just a trail of blood and other people's brilliance. No one will even know you existed.  
> QUEEN: It's important you understand, Doctor, that we would have only taken the engineer. Now, because of you, I will take everything. We will overrun this world and pick the bones clean. Have you ever seen a dead planet? 
> 
> and both 10 and 13's insistence that they gave the aliens a chance. and that their genocide is now their own fault? also the fact that the aliens are an empress and a queen. 
> 
> idk just seems like a lot of similarities. which is why i set it after 12x4 for 13. i think i meant to do more with that but i forgot. also i dont know how to write 10! forgive me for messing him up! i think no one is in character in this idk. or, well, it's always kinda a spectrum isnt it? from 'i can literally hear this character say this' to 'this character isnt even allowed to wear the same name'. i think i hang around the middle 'would they really do this?' with this but it's fine
> 
> you know what i like about this actually? the contrast with the master fic. because it's basically the same situation right? older version finds younger version and i make them do self-care by way of their other self. but the differences between the masters meeting and the doctors meeting! (well, okay, i wrote them both, so this might not be so much character traits as my writing falling short but) the masters go after each other immediately. theyre super violent. theyre super self-sabotaging. they go for the throat. but then, after the fighting and the struggle, they actually get somewhere? because theyre already down there in the muck. there's nowhere worse to go so they might as well stand up a bit? even covered in mud, they can try to stand up. (if you get my convoluted metaphor)
> 
> but the doctors! sure theyre a bit snappish, theyre a bit hostile, they like to take swings at themself ("insults dont work in this situation" was honestly the most out-of-character sentence i wrote in this but i needed it to mention the ginger beer thing), but theyre generally friendly, or POLITE at least. theyre polite.  
> and what 13 does to 10 seems nice? superficially? it seems like a kind thing to do? maybe? but there's absolutely NO self-reflection in this. they dont dig into themselves like the masters do. they dont dig deeper. they dont interrogate themselves. both 10 and 13 here plaster over their pain with some pretty words (which is the most doctor thing honestly). they dont take their pain apart like the masters do.  
> and so, the masters actually manage to do some actual self-care and actually make some progress in themselves (even if they had to pull it out of themselves by force) but the doctors, they dont get anywhere. theyre basically stagnant here
> 
> i compared the doctor with an old mountain and the master with an active volcano yesterday on tumblr and honestly, thats this too. the masters erupted but made some fertile soil afterwards, the doctors, had some temporary reassurance? they didnt change much about themselves
> 
> anyway ive been a bit harsh on the doctor lately i think, i'll try to be nicer next time (although im also brainstorming 13/missy fics i could write so... maybe not) oops i have a master bias
> 
> title is from this poem by natalie wee: https://natalieweepoetry.tumblr.com/post/159435295729/i-kneel-into-a-dream-where


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